


Enthalpy of Neutralization

by Wanderingcourier



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, F/F, First Meetings, Human AU, Secret Identity, injuries, sort of, super hero AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 02:26:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10754808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderingcourier/pseuds/Wanderingcourier
Summary: Peridot is a supervillain, investigating a possibly unwise choice made by one of the world's biggest tech companies.Amethyst is a superhero, investigating the aftermath.Neither of them get what they expected, but they can make it work.





	1. Chapter 1

With all being said, Mechanisma was harmless. Yeah, sure, they had a big scary robot outfit that pretty much completely obscured everything about them, they had an evil laugh, and they talked a lot of trash. More than they could probably back up. But really? They probably couldn’t kick a puppy without turning themselves in.

That wasn’t to say that they weren’t a _supervillain_ \-- they had stolen enough tech doodads and held up traffic with enough elaborate schemes to be a recognized name in Beach City. They just didn’t strike fear into the hearts of the people, unless those people were billionaire tech moguls.

So when Purple Puma (Amethyst Flores, to her good friends) got a call about Mechanisma’s latest break-in at Foreman Megatech’s machine lab, she was neither surprised nor worried.

Then she arrived.

The place was just _wrecked_. Half of the front wall was down, rubble and glass littering the ground. Amethyst stepped carefully over the wall, thankful for her thick boots as she picked her way across the ruined lobby. The door further into the labs was torn off of it’s hinges, the frame destroyed-- someone was pissed that it was locked, apparently.

Had… Had Mechanisma done this? It seemed out of character at best. They had never been one for brute strength, favoring the ten zillion gadgets they apparently had installed in their powersuit. For all their talk, they also usually took a more subtle approach in these late night tech theft ventures: no loud declarations of evil or bombastic explosions of plasma, just quietly slipping in any open entrance.

Amethyst wasn’t to sure how they did it, actually. The powersuit was too big to fit in a standard doorway. She’d personally seen Mechanisma knock their head into doorways on five separate occasions.

Walking through the door revealed only another trail of destruction as whoever had been through tore through the lab as they searched for… whatever they were looking for. Another few minutes of walking revealed more familiar sights and signs. Namely, the long char marks along the walls and floor unique to Mechanisma’s plasma cannons. She must be getting close to whatever they were here for.

What troubled Amethyst the most out of this wreckage was the shape of the char marks. The coma was closer to her than the tail-- Mechanisma was shooting towards this way. The rubble, however, was sprayed away from Amethyst.

Continuing on, the char marks were more frequent and more scattered, lab equipment scattered over the floor and tables overturned. Amethyst had never seen a place wrecked like this-- and without so much as an alarm going out to anyone that a brawl was going down.

Amethyst turned the corner and stopped dead, her breath catching in her throat as she saw what lay in the corridor.

A battered green foot lay in the middle of the hall, amongst the other general rubble. Ten thousand thoughts whizzed through Amethyst’s head at once-- that’s Mechanisma’s, they’re _missing a foot_ , where’s the rest of them, did they even make it out, oh hey apparently they don’t have blood how about that.

And, yeah, that _was_ weird. No blood. Huh. Oh, right, robot suit. There was probably not an actual foot in there. Cautiously approaching, Amethyst nudged the foot with her boot, flipping the ankle towards her.

Just wires. No stump. That was good, at least.

But still, how far could Mechanisma have gotten without a foot? They had that dumb little helicopter thingy, but someone who was tearing up the suit probably wouldn’t have given them the chance to escape, not with the copter's uptake time.

The next room contained more pieces of the suit, polished green metal and copper wiring scattered around. Well, that pretty much confirmed Amethyst’s suspicions-- Mechanisma hadn’t gotten away, and whoever had beaten Amethyst here had torn up the suit.

The quiet of the lab seemed suddenly overwhelming as Amethyst followed the trail of metal and circuitry.

And then, with no fanfare and no stir, there they were. The carnage was the worst in this room-- it looked like a tornado made of wires and shards of metal and glass had touched down. The powersuit looked more like a mass of wiring and piping then any operable machine, splayed across the floor, one arm and the rest of the leg the foot presumably belonged to torn off and tossed away.

Amethyst stepped forward to investigate, and felt a lump in her throat. The thick tinted glass that served as Mechanisma’s mask and helmet was shattered, their head slumped to the side, face slack and unmoving. Amethyst crouched carefully by their head, her hand hovering inches from the helmet.

Mechanisma was a villain. They had stolen millions of dollars of cutting edge technology. They had unleashed several hundred tiny robots programmed to crawl into the undersides of cars and fill them with something akin to quick setting cement into the main streets just because they could. They had thrown Amethyst personally through two walls and a circus tent (not a great day for anyone involved, to be fair).

They had a bloody nose and a split lip and a big bleeding would wound on their forehead and one remaining robot arm that was twisted so badly Amethyst didn’t know how any limb in its vicinity could have escaped unscathed. They had been unconscious for who knows how long, broken and bloody, and goddamn if Amethyst was going to leave them here to suffer. She signed up to help people who needed it, even if those people were egomaniacs with too much time on their hands and way too much access to whatever it was you used to build a giant robot suit.

Carefully, Amethyst felt around the border of the helmet and the main body of the suit, searching for some kind of release latch. There was one, towards Mechanisma’s shoulder, but the metal was cracked, and the whole latch felt sort of shoved in, like it had gotten stuck when someone tried to pull of the helmet. A little gentle wiggling, and with a soft click, the edge of the helmet lifted away from the body of the suit. Amethyst prodded around the other shoulder, locating the other latch and pulling the helmet off carefully.

Mechanisma, as it turned out, bleached their short, choppy cut hair. Amethyst had to move forward, letting their head rest on her folded legs as she bent over, trying to figure out how to extract them from the rest of the suit without letting their head loll back. The destruction of the metal casing exposed the more obvious seams and hinges in the suit, but she couldn’t just tear it apart. She had no idea what the suit looked like internally-- if Mechanisma was physically attached to the suit, they could get hurt even worse.

After a moment’s consideration, Amethyst propped up their head with the remains of the helmet. The torso of the suit came apart pretty easily, with the metal hinges that must have allowed Mechanisma to climb in now revealed. Once the torso was pulled back, Amethyst could much more comfortably asses the damage.

Mechanisma wore plain street clothes inside the suit-- weird, Amethyst would have guessed an evangelion-type jumpsuit or something. The clothes didn’t look torn or especially bloodied so they didn’t get stabbed or anything, but the clothes were covered in a weird blue oily substance. Maybe the suit ran on that junk? Like robot gasoline? Either way, it stuck to Amethyst’s gloves and smelled like someone had dumped a bottle of listerine into a puddle of motor oil. She’d have to get the gloves dry cleaned, or something.

The second thing that caught Amethyst off guard was how small Mechanisma actually was. She had assumed that they were at least as tall as Pearl, maybe even larger, but against the wreck of the power suit they looked tiny.

Looking inside the suit made removing the arms of the suit much simpler and yeah, that left arm didn’t look good. The forearm and wrist looked swollen, but Amethyst didn’t see any bones or anything, which was good cause if Mechanisma was like dying or something Amethyst would have to call Rose, and that meant that all of the other Crystal Gems would show up, and that would just be a wreck.  

She’d probably have to call Rose anyways, but she could at least get some ice on that arm and bandage up the wound on their forehead.

Once the suit was pulled apart, however, Amethyst faced her next dilemma: She couldn’t treat Mechanisma here. She had no equipment, for one, and she had no idea if whoever had done this was planning on coming back. And it wasn’t like she could take Mechanisma, known supervillain, back to the base. Garnet would flay her, even if Rose would be okay with it (and she would, ‘cause when had Rose ever tossed out anyone who needed her help).

But… they _were_ in plain clothes. Amethyst had clothing packs of her own hidden throughout the city, she could change. It was a late Friday night (early Saturday morning?), she could say that she and her friend were out drinking when her friend was… okay yeah they looked like they got run over a little bit but Amethyst could make that work.

  
She hauled Mechanisma over her shoulder, trying her hardest not to jostle their injured arm, and hoped that this wasn’t too much of a fuck up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened at the labs, anyways? And who exactly did Amethyst bring back to her apartment?

Laying out Mechanisma on her bed (protected by several old towels for easy clean up), Amethyst considered for the umpteenth time that night that maybe she should have just dropped the villain off at the hospital. That would be a perfectly logical thing to do. She could have just dropped them off and called it a night.

But something about this whole situation put Amethyst on edge. Someone had destroyed the labs, and Amethyst had no idea if they were gunning for Mechanisma in particular, if they had shown up to rob the place on the same night and got mad they were beaten to the punch, or if this was some new vigilante testing how far they could go. In any case, Amethyst’s gut demanded that she keep Mechanisma close by. They may have been a villain, but Amethyst didn’t want them _dead._

Either way, she hurried to her tiny kitchen to get some rags, a bowl of warm water, and a few ice packs. She didn’t know if that arm was broken, and she didn’t want to poke at it for fear of causing further injury, but she could at least try and bring down the swelling. She pulled a chair up next to the bed and got to work.

She was trying to clean the blood from the wound on Mechanisma’s forehead when they groaned, eyes fluttering. Amethyst paused, eyes flickering to where her whip sat coiled on her desk. If Mechanisma went for her, could she grab it in time? How strong were they without the suit, anyways? She should have called one of her cousins or something to stay with her while she did this.

Much to Amethyst's relief (and vague concern), Mechanisma did nothing but groan again, apparently barely able to open their eyes.

“...Where ‘m I? Wha…” They blinked heavily, trying to turn their head to look at Amethyst before hissing in pain. Shit. Oh shit, please don’t let that be a broken neck. Amethyst was _not_ here to deal with spinal cord bullshit.

“You got beat up. Hold still.” Amethyst’s response was curt, a little cold. But then, she had no clue what to actually say. ‘Hey, I know I regularly attempt to arrest you and all but I just wasn’t feeling it, so I brought you back to my apartment’?

“I got….? Who’re you?” Mechanisma blinked blearily up at Amethyst. They were definitely concussed, their pupils dilating large to small to large again. Amethyst considered her response to their question, before deciding to just be honest. It would be pretty hard to hide that she was a super once Mechanisma remembered what happened anyways.

“Recognize me now?” She held her mask up to her eyes and made a face, baring her teeth in a false grin. Being panthera themed gave her excuses for the _best_ expressions.

Mechanisma blinked dumbly. Amethyst was almost offended. Scratch that, Amethyst was super offended. Heh, super.

“Can’t see. Where ‘r my glasses?” They mumbled. Glasses? The glass on their helmet but have been a makeshift lens for them.

But if they were asking for their glasses, did they remember when and where they got knocked out?

“I didn’t see any where I found you.” That was… technically true. Amethyst didn’t know the glass on the helmet acted as glasses at the time. Not her fault.

“So what’s your name?” Amethyst asked. It couldn’t hurt. And it was fair, asking their name! She had brought them into her apartment, which pretty much blew her cover, assuming Mechanisma didn’t just forget this whole night.

Hey, maybe whoever beat her up knocked all the evil out of her head. That’d be convenient.

“Peridot. Did you find m’ wallet? ...Did I get robbed?” Amethyst paused and looked at Mechanisma (Peridot?), bewildered. Mechanisma was asking if she got robbed. _Mechanisma_ was asking _Amethyst_ if they had gotten _beaten up and robbed._ Holy shit.

“I, uh, didn’t check. Peridot, huh? Pretty name.” Oh fuck why did she say that out loud. She was just trying to avoid laughing at the ridiculousness of Peridot’s last sentence why did she say those words?!

Like. It wasn’t a lie, though. Oh good Peridot was talking again time to stop that train of thought immediately. Just blow up the rails, Amethyst, ‘cause we are never letting that train progress. This person is an actual no shit supervillain, it ain’t happening.

“Thanks, I guess. M’ mom wanted a unique girl’s name. Mostly people tell me I pronounce it wrong. ‘S french or somethin.” Okay, cool. Peridot was a girl, probably. Two mysteries solved in one day, hell yeah. Also wow yeah Peridot was definitely concussed, with that slur. She also rambled just as much as she did as Mechanisma. Amethyst had thought she was just hamming it up for the news cameras.

Amethyst dabbed at Peridot’s forehead, trying to ignore her little hisses of pain. So, a rundown of the current situation: Someone beat the shit out of Mechanisma, who was actually named Peridot, and who was also now in Amethyst apartment with no idea who Amethyst was or why she got beat up.

Man, Amethyst was gonna get some _phone calls_ once other people arrived on the scene. Unless she called them first. Either way, shitty phone calls.

“So who’re you? I can’t recognize faces without m’ glasses…” Oh fuck.

“I’m… That’s sort of a story.”

“What’d you try to show me earlier? That would make me recognize you?” Peridot was sort of squinting at her now, as if she could just make herself focus. Of course, Peridot probably hadn’t ever really seen Amethyst, so she could try all she liked.

But Amethyst couldn’t just leave her in the dark forever, could she? That… wouldn’t be right, she didn’t think. The thought tempted her-- to tell Peridot she found her in an alleyway, but she could giver her a lift home and maybe they could talk again sometime.

Relationships with people not in the know never worked out, though. A relationship where Amethyst was not just hiding her own identity, but also part of Peridot’s?

She couldn’t do that to her.

“Do you remember anything before you blacked out? Hold still real fast.”

Peridot frowned up at the ceiling, and Amethyst tore a gauze pad out of its wrapper, carefully taping it down to Peridot’s forehead.

“I was… gonna… do something important. No, I was… I needed something. I don’t know.” Amethyst nodded. How far could she go? How much could Peridot even remember?

This was a risk, but Amethyst had to take it. She had to know.

“Does Foreman Megatech ring a bell?” 

Peridot blinked, her brows quirking downward. Amethyst hoped she put enough tape on the bandage.

“Megatech… I needed… A.I.? They had…” Peridot trailed off, still mumbling, and once again Amethyst eyed her whip. She didn’t expect Peridot to try anything, but it never hurt to be repared for the worst.

Peridot made a triumphant noise and sat bolt upright, before closing her eyes and swearing, collapsing back onto the bed, her good hand over her eyes.

“It was an A.I. module! They made it _work_ , but they didn’t-- I had to-- fuck, I think I'm gonna puke--”

That was enough to send Amethyst into a panic as she stood up, unsubtly grabbing her whip as well as the little trashcan she kept by her desk. Hopefully Peridot didn’t mind puking onto some food wrappers.

“They-- They-- I--” Peridot stuttered and stopped and restarted as Amethyst sat her up, propping pillows behind her back with one hand and shoving the trash can into Peridot’s lap with the other.

“It was so upset I couldn’t _not_ … I didn’t realise anyone else had figured it out. Did they? Wrong place, wrong time…” Peridot mumbled, hugging the trashcan with her good arm now, the swollen arm hanging limp by her side.

“I’m sure you’re really onto something here dude, but you are talking complete nonsense right now. What exactly happened back there?”

Peridot shook her head before cringing.

“Can you turn the light down first?” She asked quietly. The shift in tone was drastic-- she had been half manic seconds before, mumbling to herself between sentences, finger tapping anxiously on the trashcan. Now she was still.

Amethyst obliged, movements a little more cautious now as she turned on the floor lamp across the room and shut off the overhead light. The room was much dimmer now-- not so dim that Amethyst couldn’t see, of course, but Peridot visibly relaxed.

“Now, what are you talking about?”

“Foreman Megatech made an AI. An AI that wanted out. I don’t know how it contacted… anyone else, but I went to go… check it out.” Amethyst could pretty much guess what ‘check it out’ actually meant, but Peridot continued before she could comment.

“I got there, and everything was fine. It was upset. Really, really upset. I kept trying to communicate with it, it kept shutting me out, and then… I don’t know. It did something back. Then it called something? Maybe? Whatever it was charged me, and I ran, but… I don’t remember much after running. Then I woke up here.”

“What do you mean, you communicated with the AI? Was it, like, a robot? Could it talk?”

Peridot said nothing, staring into the trashcan. Then, very quietly, she mumbled, “Shit.”

Then, a little louder, she asked, “You’re a super, aren’t you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Manic mad scientist Peridot rules, man. Also Amethyst is so gay, you guys. So gay.
> 
> Also I've actually seen people posting that Peridot is pronounced wrong in show! Apparently it can also be pronounced with no 't' ("peri-dough"), but both pronunciations are accepted by jewelers, so whatever man.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're getting the band back together!

Amethyst had no business being as distressed by that question as she was. She had already decided that she wasn’t going to lie to Peridot. Hell, she’d grabbed her whip purely because she knew this was gonna happen. She could take one scrawny nerd with a concussion easily. 

Being able to beat Peridot in a fight wasn’t really the problem though, was it. Damn it. She’d told herself that she wasn’t gonna get like this. Shit. 

Peridot hadn’t looked up yet. 

“You showed me y’r mask, didn’t you? You’re a super. Fuck.”

Amethyst nodded awkwardly. 

“Yeah. I’m, uh… I’m Purple Puma.” No use playing coy about it. Yeah, maybe showing off the mask wasn’t her best idea ever. 

Peridot doubled over, her eyes squeezed shut.

“Fuck…”

Was… was Peridot crying? Oh fuck she was. Oh shit. Ohhhhh no. Amethyst awkwardly put a hand on Peridot’s shoulder. She didn’t even know if they were sad tears or angry tears. She also couldn’t just let Peridot cry, that would be weird. And just generally not cool, really.

“Look dude, I know this seems like a shit situation. But I’m not, like, gonna turn ya in or call the other Gems or anything.” Not yet, at least. Amethyst was gonna let this play out before making a concrete decision on that one. “If I was gonna hand you over to the cops I wouldn’t have brought you here, right? I just wanna figure out what’s going on.”

Peridot hiccuped a little, still clutching at the trashcan, and looked over warily at Amethyst. 

“It’s not… I mean, I don’ wanna go to jail, but it’s that… I shouldn’t’ve told you any of that. Lotta people ‘r gonna be angry. ‘Nd I gave away a secret. I don’t… I don’ even know where the suit is, now. I…” She trailed off. 

“...I wouldn’t worry about the suit, dude, that thing got trashed. Like, torn apart, arms and legs torn off trashed. Dunno where or how you built it but you’re gonna need to build another one.”

Astoundingly, the news that Peridot’s powersuit had been destroyed didn’t cheer her up. Who’d’ve thunk it.

“‘S not that easy. The suit took years to build.” Amethyst refrained from commenting on that. Mostly that no Mechanisma for a few years didn’t sound bad to her at all.

But if there was some sort of AI conspiracy going down, maybe having someone good with robots around wouldn’t be the worst thing. At least, it sounded like Peridot was trying to do… something not bad? 

“Whatever. What’s this about an AI?” 

Peridot frowned again. Amethyst was starting to suspect that it was Peridot’s default face setting.

“Foreman built an AI. It was angry about… existing, pretty much. Putting out all sorts of signals, trying to find someone to let it out. I tried to get through to it, to get it hooked up to something it could use as a sensor, to try and calm it down. It wouldn’t listen. They don’t know what they’ve done.  _ I _ don’t know what they’ve done. I don’t even know what it did. Nothing’s reached _ back _ like that before.”

“...What do you mean reached back?”

Peridot blushed, and Amethyst had no goddamn clue why. 

“Technopathy. I talk to computers. I… no one was supposed to know that.”

Amethyst looked at Peridot, like maybe this was all some weird prank.  

“Yeah? What’s my laptop say?” Oh shit, maybe inviting a supervillain to brain-hack her laptop wasn’t her best idea ever. Welp.

“It says to reboot it, you haven’t in two months.” Peridot’s voice said snark, but her body said pain. Not good. Oh yeah, using psychic powers with a concussion was probably kinda painful. Shit. Well, Amethyst couldn’t make that unhappen. But…

“If you can talk to computers, why even be a supervillain? Why not just… steal stuff quietly with computers?”

Peridot turned a splotchy red, grumbling something under her breath. Amethyst raised an eyebrow.

“...Is that something you’ve been doing?”

“Maybe,” Peridot mumbled, “It’s not a great situation.” Amethyst frowned. She’d actually have to report that.. Y’know, if she could ever figure out where Peridot was stealing from and why Peridot personally considered it to be a bad thing, which was… doubtful, at this point. Whatever. 

“So, whaddya mean when you say it… reached back?”

Peridot shuddered. 

“I dunno how else to describe it. I was talking to it, trying to… I don’t know, make it less mad? And it just… did something. It felt like my brain got dumped into a bucket of electric eels and ice water. I… think maybe it read my mind, or followed whatever connection there was back into my head, or something.” Peridot sounded… almost numb. Like not even she understood what she was saying. 

“And that’s different from what usually happens?” Amethyst asked. She had no idea how any of this was supposed to work-- she’d never even met anyone with any sort of telepathy. Sure, Water Witch had hydrokinesis, but they hadn’t exactly sat down and talked about it. Also, Amethyst was, like, eighty percent sure that Water Witch didn’t talk to the water.

Ehhhh. Seventy-five.

“It’s usually like reading words off a screen, or like using a chat client or something. There’s a barrier. This was like if you were texting someone, and they were able to reach through the screen and touch you. Except instead of touching you physically, they poked you in the brain with a cattle prod.”

Amethyst nodded and pretended that the analogy made sense. Peridot was concussed, she probably deserved a little bit of slack. 

Still, this whole thing was troubling. A pissy AI who could psychically talk with people (and presumably other machines, if it could fuck with Peridot’s computer brain powers or whatever the hell)? Not a great situation. Amethyst would even go so far as to call it sort of a shitty situation. And probably not a two-person situation either, considering that the AI could mess directly with Peridot’s brain.

Amethyst stood up purposefully. 

“Don’t go anywhere,” She ordered, like Peridot was gonna magically fix her arm and jump her concussed (was it a concussion? If something she was communicating with reached back…) ass out Amethyst’s fourth floor window.

“...Are you gonna reboot your computer?” Peridot asked, apparently genuinely confused.

“I’m calling the Gems. This is some shit we’ve stumbled into.”

“What?! No!” Peridot attempted to push herself to her feet, only to wobble dangerously as her body caught up to her head wound. 

Amethyst rushed back over, steadying Peridot and blatantly ignoring how she had to pretty much bear hug her to keep her from pushing herself any further and collapsing on Amethyst’s floor. She gently eased Peridot back onto the bed, carefully avoiding her (thankfully now less) swollen arm. 

“There’s a sentient and apparently malicious AI that has control over, or some sorta alliance with, something that tore both you and a concrete and steel building apart. You admitted yourself that you don’t know what it’s capable of, or how it’s capable of it. I am  _ not _ dealing with this alone!”

Amethyst may have been foolhardy (exhibit a: brought home a supervillain), but she wasn’t stupid (debatable, honestly). She certainly wasn’t going to wait around for some crazy robot to try and take over the city, or whatever the hell it was crazy robots did. She was a woman of action! And allies!

“You need medical help, anyways. So I  _ gotta _ at least call Rose.”

Peridot made an undignified noise. 

“You don’ understand. I-- What makes you think they’ll help me?! They’ll just ‘s likely--”

“Rose’ll heal you. Don’t you dare even  _ imply _ that she won’t.”

Peridot was silent for a moment. Good.

“...After that, though?”

Well. It wasn’t a bad question. Garnet and Pearl would be pissed when they found out. Amethyst didn’t even know what Bismuth would do-- she had always reserved her anger for villains who really hurt people, but how would she react to Amethyst asking her to team up with a known supervillain? And they  _ would _ find out about Peridot’s identity. Peridot being Mechanisma wasn’t something they could hide, not if they gave all the information, and they would need to do that if they wanted to stand a chance of fixing this mess. 

Peridot would just have to play nice. Amethyst wasn’t sure if that would be easier or harder once her head got fixed.

“After Rose heals you, you’ll tell us exactly what happened, and we can get started finding this thing.” 

Peridot nodded slowly. 

“And what makes you think tha’ they’ll lemme leave after that?” 

Amethyst didn’t really have an answer to that question. She just didn’t. She had no idea what they would do-- certainly, they weren’t going to interrogate her, not if she would give all this information out willingly. Keeping Peridot out of jail-- that might be harder. 

Amethyst saw a solution, though. She just didn’t know if any of the others (besides Rose, anyways) would like it. Hell, she didn’t even know if  _ Peridot _ would like it. 

But her gut said yes, this is the most correct idea, so she said it anyways.

“I mean… having someone who can hack computers with her brain would probably help with finding and taking down this AI, ya know?” 

Peridot just stared at Amethyst for a solid ten seconds, looking at her like she was waiting for Amethyst to explain the joke. Slowly, her expression changed from one of vague disdain to one of confusion. 

“...You’re joking.”

“Nu-uh. How is that not a great idea? You’ve gotta at least be able to track it down, or something, right?”

“It doesn’t quite… oh, never mind.” Peridot paused. “What makes you think the other Gems will even agree to this proposal?” She asked quickly.

Amethyst shrugged. 

“I gotta good feeling about this, y’know? Good vibes.”

Peridot looked at her, her face slackening a little bit. 

“You really mean this. You are actually asking me to join your girl scout troop to psychically assist you in finding an AI.”

“We’ll even give ya a discount on the cookies.”

Peridot’s eyebrows furrowed.

“That one actually  _ was _ a joke, dude.” Amethyst clarified, before Peridot could make her brain thing worse by thinking too hard about what cookies the Crystal Gems would sell.

“..Yes. Haha. I knew that.” Peridot said with a scowl. In the dim light, now accentuated by the first rays of the sunrise peeking in around Amethyst’s blinds, she could see the dust of blush spreading from Peridot’s cheeks to her ears.

Holy shit, she actually sort of wanted Peridot on the team now. This was some top quality banter right here. Hopefully she stayed this easily flustered when they fixed her concussion or backfire or whatever. She was cute when she blushed, anyways.

It was okay to think that now that Peridot might be joining the team, at least temporarily. Crushing on allies wasn’t against the rules. Rose might actually encourage it.

They looked awkwardly at each other for a moment. 

“...I accept your proposal, by the way.” Peridot grumbled, looking away. 

“My what now?”

Peridot fidgeted, tapping the fingers of her good hand in a quick pattern.

“I’d like to help.”

Amethyst grinned broadly, and Peridot flushed darker.

“I’ll go call the team.”

The next few days were probably gonna suck really hard. There was a demented AI on the loose, the AI had a big angry buddy, not to mention the headache that was gonna be the wreckage at the lab. People were gonna be hunting down not just the AI, but also Mechanisma once word got out about the suit, or (especially) if anyone caught wind of this team up. 

Luckily, no one was gonna be hunting down Peridot.   
Yeah. They could make this work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will this be a series? Maybe. For now, this is the end of my superhero AU. I am outlining a possible series, but it would be very long. Longer, in fact, than any other project I've ever undertaken. So for now this story is on the back burner, at least until I finish finals and get settled into my summer job. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amethyst makes a hellaciously awkward phone call, and two discreet speeches. Peridot gets her arm un-broken, and manages to not completely fuck up.

The question now, of course, was how to approach making what was certain to be one of the most awkward phone calls of Amethyst’s life. How was she even supposed to open this articular can of worms? ‘Hey, so we’re adopting Mechanisma and also there’s totally a killer AI on the loose, we should deal with that at some point.’ Pearl was gonna kill her.

Amethyst dialed the number anyways, ‘cause the alternative was leaving Peridot to her concussion/brain injury in Amethyst’s darkened bedroom, and frankly speaking Peridot was gonna have to start paying rent if she stayed much longer or complained any more. Amethyst bit her lip as the other end rang, hoping against hope that literally anyone except Pearl picked up the phone.

“Amethyst, it’s two in the morning. Why are you calling base from your personal phone?” Pearl said, and Amethyst cursed internally.

“Uh, well, funny story P. Remember how there was that break-in, and I went to go investigate?” She said, once again trying to find the best way to tell the truth.

“Of course. Is everything alright? You shouldn’t call from your cellphone if there's trouble, you know, someone could track you--”

“I _know_ that, P. There was trouble, but it didn’t exactly happen to me,” Pearl started to speak, but Amethyst cut her off. “Let me finish before you start squawkin’ at me.  It, uhm, aw shit, how should I say this. Trouble happened but it happened to, uh, _Mechanisma_ , and uhm, shemightbeinmyapartmentrightnow. Like, right now. Also she broke her arm. And got her suit trashed. And I think she’s concussed. You should really give the phone to Rose, if she’s there.”

There was a beat of silence on the other end of the line. Amethyst braced for impact.

“You-- She-- Amethyst, what did you _do?!_ Do you have any idea the risk you are taking by having a _supervillain_ in your _apartment?!_ ” Pearl yelled. Amethyst could picture her turning red at just the thought. Somehow, the mental image brought her no amusement.

“No Pearl, I didn’t think it through, and have in fact never considered that this might be a dumb idea, because I was literally born yesterday. Of course I thought it through! Listen, something trashed that place, and it _wasn’t_ Mechanisma. _She_ doesn’t even know what it was! And she was injured, too. Did ya hear the part where the suit got trashed?! She’s not a threat without it, I’m pretty stinkin’ sure of that.”

“Mechanisma _‘not being a threat’_ means that you bring her back to base, not back to your apartment! Amethyst, you do realise that you’re blowing your cover by doing this, don’t you?! For all you know, this is a ploy to reveal all of our identities. This puts all of us at risk!”

Amethyst sighed, resting her forehead on her hand as she plopped down onto her squishy old couch.

“P, I get that you’re worried. I do! But... her brain isn’t _working_ right. She told me her _name_ , Pearl. Her real name. She was talking nonsense when she woke up, she thought that she’d gotten _mugged_ .” Amethyst gnawed on her lip again as she considered whether or not to tell Pearl everything Peridot had told her. Pearl was silent on the other end of the line. “She told me about powers that no one was supposed to know about, or something. Hell, she pretty much told me her whole mission! Pearl, there’s something going on right now. Something she was trying to… to stop, I think. I think we need to at least get her in her right mind and get some info out of her. That’s why I need to talk to Rose. Hell, bring the whole team over. But I _know_ that I made the right decision. So uh… yeah. Is Rose there?”

Pearl was silent of a moment more.

“She told you her _name?_ ” Pearl asked in a hushed whisper, somewhere between disbelieving and awestruck.

“Yeah. She didn’t know who I was. She just… put it right out there.” Amethyst replied.

“Well. If she really told you her real name… I’ll call the team. Rose isn’t at base, but I’ll call her too. We’ll be at your apartment in twenty minutes.” Pearl was curt, but Amethyst could just hear the gears turning in her head as she spoke.

“I’ll be waiting.” And with that, Amethyst could hear Pearl _click_ as she hung up.

Amethyst collapsed back against her couch. That went… better than she expected, really. Of course, once everyone was actually here it would be a whole different ballgame.

 

* * *

 

The discussion was tense. Amethyst had expected nothing less.

Garnet had her arms crossed as she sat on Amethyst’s squishy couch, expressionless behind her sunglasses but pensiveness written in the stiffness of her body. Pearl sat next to her, fiddling nervously with her scarf, frowning. Bismuth sat on the ancient armchair, her elbows on her knees, a stern sort of expression on her face. Amethyst herself sat on the beanbag, leaning back almost casually.

Rose was in Amethyst’s bedroom, tending to whatever Peridot had going on. Amethyst could vaguely hear her voice through the thin door.

“I don’t like this,” Pearl said softly, still fidgeting, “She’s still a villain. We have no idea who’s side she’s on.”

“If she’s gonna try and turn good, then we _need_ to let her. If we push her away now, then we are gonna lose what sounds like a pretty valuable ally.” Bismuth argued. “She’s not a threat right now, not without that suit of hers. We need to trust her.”

Pearl shook her head.

“We don’t even know why she was there, and the explanation Amethyst gave doesn’t make any sense. Why was she trying to contact the AI? She has to have a motive, why else would she take a risk?”

“Well, that’s half of why we have to help her, isn’t it? She’s the only one who can give us the full story, and that’s not gonna happen if we send her to prison.” Bismuth replied.

“She might,” Pearl sniffed, “We can try and get a story out of her, sure, but we can’t just let her go, not knowing what she does now! Half the city would know our identities by the end of the day!”

Amethyst cleared her throat.

“I don’t want to burst your bubble, P, but I think that if she can hack all our tech with just her brain, she knows our identities already. Or at least, she can follow the cell signals from our coms back to our actual locations. Like,” She laughed nervously, “if she doesn’t even have to touch a piece of technology to hack it, then she probably has, like, our social security numbers and shit. Just uhh,” she laughed again, “just puttin’ that out there.”

A silence fell over the room.

“Shit.” Bismuth said, and Garnet nodded.

“So we--” Bismuth began.

“I don’t think that particular facet of her powers are a threat.” Garnet cut her off, adjusting her sunglasses. “If it were, she would have made it known earlier. I mean,” she chuckled, “do you really think she’d keep that information secret from us?”

And, well, that was a good point. Peridot, or at least Mechanisma, had been if nothing else a braggart. And there was nothing she bragged about more than her advantages; that she was smarter or faster or had brought a supervillain that didn’t suck at fighting along with her this time. Something as big as knowing their secret identities? Mechanisma would be on that like jam on toast. Damn, Amethyst wanted toast. Oh shit, Bismuth was talking again.

“--effectively powerless, anyways! Even if she is working for someone, that does _not_ sound like a successful mission! If it went so badly that she lost her whole suit, she could be in actual danger!”

“I don’t disagree,” Garnet retorted, “but if she _is_ working with another supervillain, the consequences of that are not ours to worry about.”

“You’re just gonna throw her to the wolves?” Amethyst asked, eyebrows raised, leaning forward. “She doesn’t have her suit, if they send, I dunno, Blue Pixie after her, she’s dead! We’re _heros_ , man, we can’t just abandon her.”

“They won’t kill her. If her… hacking powers are what she says they are, she’ll be much too useful to kill.”

“And you’re gonna let them put her in a cage and exploit her for the rest of her life. Look, if there’s someone behind this, or behind her, _then we already know who it is_. And the Diamonds don’t take kindly to failure. We all know that.” Bismuth’s fists were clenched as she spoke. God, Bismuth would know, wouldn’t she?

Garnet was silent, and Pearl pursed her lips.

There was a long moment, the tension amassing like cigarette smoke in a closed-up car. Finally, Amethyst spoke.

“We don’t have to trust her. But I think, and I know that maybe you think I’m wrong,” She glanced at Garnet and Pearl, “I think that we gotta help her. What the hell else are we doing this for? I mean, someone gets hurt and we help them. It’s how we operate. It’s what Crystal Gems do.”

She leaned back, looking away and shrugging. “I think she was trying to do… something not bad at that lab. I don’t know about good, but… not bad.”

Silence loomed again, although Bismuth was nodding slightly.

“This could come back to bite us,” Pearl said, looking up at Garnet.

Garnet just shrugged.

 

* * *

 

Peridot had been in a lot of situations that most would call ‘intimidating’. She had dealt with superheros and villains alike, and prided herself on how rarely she backed down. Sure, she might be scared, she might run, but she liked to think that she kept her pride and her composure, no matter the circumstances.

But, well, there were always exceptions, always people who could just make her freeze up. And bafflingly, Rose was one of them.

It was the concussion, she told herself as Rose carefully prodded at her swollen arm. At least, hopefully she had a concussion, and not some sort of psychic injury. She shivered at the memory, of the still lingering feelings of an electrical intrusion into her mind.

Rose frowned at her, her expression one of vague concern, and Peridot stilled herself.

“I’m not hurting you, am I?” Rose asked, pulling slightly away from Peridot’s arm.

Peridot shook her head, and immediately regretted it. Her hand went to her forehead to try and steady herself against the rush of pain and nausea, and she groaned softly.

“You haven’t done anything. ‘S just the aftershock.” Peridot mumbled, and Rose resumed… whatever she was doing. Large, soft hands grasped Peridot’s arm, just above and below the break, and a few drops of _something_ landed on Peridot’s swollen forearm.

The relief was dizzyingly immediate-- all the pain drained out of her arm like water out of a sink, and as Peridot looked over, she could see her arm returning to it’s normal size (and color, thankfully-- that shade of purple was frankly pretty distressing). Rose held a little bottle of semi-opaque, pinkish liquid in her hand. Before Peridot could ask about its origins, Rose spoke.

“Those aftershocks… can you describe them for me? Amethyst described them as being psychic in nature, right?”

Peridot cautiously pulled her arm back, flexing and rotating her wrist.

“I believe so. At least, I believe that some amount of my current mental state is the result of the contact that was made.”

Rose _hmmm_ ed, and scooted closer to her, reaching for the bandage on Peridot’s forehead. Peridot flinched as her fingers skimmed the tape, but Rose made no comment.

“Could you lie back for me, please? If it won’t aggravate your headache.” Rose spoke softly, gently, the way Jasper used to speak to stray dogs. Peridot blinked and lied down, trying to push Jasper out of her mind for now. Lord, _that_ was going to be a hell of a conversation.

There were going to be a lot of rough conversations, Peridot thought as she squeezed her eyes shut. Too many explanations to too many people, just to try and justify her actions.

Rose peeled back the bandage, and Peridot gritted her teeth.

“It’s not that bad,” Rose reassured, “just a surface wound. This should help the concussion, too.”

More of that liquid dripped down onto Peridot’s forehead, and once again there was the disconcerting sensation of her skin closing up, of the pain and blurriness fading away. Rose made a displeased noise, and Peridot stiffened. She hadn’t _done_ anything, how on earth could she be messing up this tenuous alliance already--

“It’s odd that it scarred. I’d like to try and look into that more later-- if you don’t mind, of course.”

Peridot blinked her eyes open, but looked away.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” she said quietly, slowly moving to sit up. She raised her hand to her forehead again, brushing where the wound used to be. Sure enough, she could feel a patch of soft scar tissue, just above her right eyebrow. She followed the thin trail of the scar to to corner of her right eye, and Rose watched her carefully.

“I think,” Peridot began, and Rose leaned in ever so slightly, “I think it’s some sort of psychic damage. When the connection was made, it made some sort of arc flash, but not out of electricity.” Peridot frowned, trying to think back at the night’s events, now that her head was clear.

Rose placed a hand on Peridot’s shoulder.

“I think it’s best that we discuss this back at the base.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess I am continuing this. I have an outline and stuff, but expect updates to be pretty slow.
> 
> Dunno how happy I am with the last section of this chapter-- Rose is so hard to write. I think the rest of it turned out pretty nicey, though.
> 
> Thanks to Fangirlonabicycle for proofreading and beta-ing! This is my first time writing like half of these characters, and your help was very much appreciated.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he lights are on, but nobody's (supposed) to be home. Featuring a beach, a room, and the world's least surprising reveal.

The discussion on the next steps vis-a-vis Mechanisma had petered out, somewhat. Pearl had conspicuously muttered a few things to Garnet, but mostly, the conversation had turned away from the supervillain only feet away in Amethyst’s bedroom. 

All four heads snapped towards the door to the bedroom as it creaked open, Rose leading a weary looking Peridot out. Even Pearl gave a sympathetic grimace-- despite have been healed, Peridot looked like a  _ wreck _ . The dark bags under her eyes looked somehow worse than when Amethyst had picked her up, and she was still covered in that blue fluid. Most striking was the pale scar that now ran from the center of her forehead to just over her right eyebrow, then across to the far corner of her right eye. Had she always had that? Here forehead had been sort of… bloody the last time Amethyst saw it. Maybe she’d just missed it.

“We’re going back to base.” Rose announced. “We’ll set up a plan of action and proceed from there. Peridot,” She placed a hand on Peridot’s shoulder, and Peridot stiffened, “will be coming with us to shed some light on the night’s events.” Peridot nodded, but frowned. She cleared her throat, jaw clenching as all eyes landed on her.

“I was hoping that it would be permissible for me to return to my apartment for my ID, glasses, and phone.” Peridot said, hands clasped woodenly behind her back. 

Bismuth exchanged a  _ look  _ with Amethyst, and she just knew that they were both thinking the same thing:  _ is this chick for real?  _ Even Rose looked a little startled, a miniscule crease in her eyebrows forming. Of course, Garnet was as impassive as ever beneath her sunglasses (and man, it was like four AM, there was  _ no need _ ). 

Pearl, however, wasn’t thrown off for even a second. 

“That can be arranged,” She said, glancing around the room. “I drove here, so we can drive you back to you apartment to pick up your ID. And, of course…” She trailed off looking at Peridot’s blue and dirt stained clothes. 

Peridot glanced down at herself, grimacing. 

“Right. Yes, a change of clothes would be much appreciated.” She admitted, picking at a bit of the dried on gunk. Peridot looked back up, her face twisted into a frown. “Wait, ‘we’ can drive me?”

* * *

 

It had been decided (after intense debate) that Bismuth, being the tallest, had automatic shotgun rights while in Pearl’s truck. That left Garnet, Amethyst and Peridot in the back seat, and Peridot, being the shortest (and scrawniest), ended up stuffed into the middle seat. It had also been decided that the most efficient and effective way to prevent any transfer of the actuator gel from Peridot to the seats was to wrap Peridot in a large, ratty towel, like a bootleg shawl. 

To put it more succinctly, Peridot had been on better car rides.

The drive to her apartment building was surprisingly short, only about ten minutes through the side streets. They pulled up to the curb, and Pearl put the truck in park. 

“So, who’s going in with her?” She asked. Peridot bristled-- there was no need to treat her like a  _ child _ , or like a misbehaving dog. She bit back her protests. She needed this to go well, and the best way to cooperate, in her experience, was to keep her stupid mouth shut. 

Amethyst shrugged. 

“I’ll go. I mean, it shouldn’t take more than like, what, five minutes?”

Pearl made a  _ tsk _ noise and opened her mouth to speak. 

“Maybe two people should go,” Garnet interjected before Pearl could begin. “Better safe than sorry.”

“What, like she’s gonna run off once you guys aren’t looking directly at her? C’mon, I could kick her butt any day.” Amethyst laughed like Peridot wasn’t  _ right there. _ Curse these… people, best to keep it polite even in her head. You shouldn’t go running your mouth now, Peridot reminded herself, Holly’s voice echoing in her head ( _ fuck  _ Holly).

Pearl made an offended noise, and Peridot glanced past Garnet to look out the window, searching for a distraction. Her eyes wandered up to her own window, plainly visible (if extremely blurry) from the street and-- that wasn’t right. She frowned. 

Bismuth was about to speak when Peridot cut in, her eyes still glued to her apartment window.

“There’s someone in my apartment,” she said, and once again everyone’s eyes turned towards her. “Third floor, left of center. The lights are on, and I know I turned them off before I left this morning.” Shit, she shouldn’t have said ‘this morning.’ Stupid mistake.  

Amethyst put her hand on Peridot’s thigh as she craned to look out the truck window, and Peridot froze, heat sparking across her face. No, no, she was ignoring this. She was ignoring this so well that it may as well have never happened in the first place. 

“You’re sure you didn’t leave them on?” Garnet asked tersely, and Peridot snapped back to reality. 

“I never leave my lights on when I leave my apartment. Ever.” She said seriously. She had a routine, and she stuck to it rigidly-- but they didn’t need to know that. 

Silence reigned, five sets of eyes glued to the yellow glow of the apartment window. A fuzzy shape moved quickly past it, and Peridot’s jaw clenched. Someone was in there, going through her things, and Peridot had a pretty good idea of who it might be. 

“Peridot,” Pearl began, “would it be possible to see the truck out that window right now?”

“It is unlikely that anyone could see  _ into _ this truck, but they will see the headlights if they look.” Peridot answered. Pearl flipped a dial, and the lights of the truck switched off. She turned, fixing Peridot with a suspicious glare.

“Is there anyone who would be expecting you to be home at this hour?”

“No,” Peridot shook her head, “not right now. No one knew I left to check out Foreman.” That was pretty much the truth-- no one cared what she did with her free time, as long as she returned when she was needed.

“But someone  _ would _ be looking for you at a different time.” Garnet observed. Son of a bitch. Peridot didn’t say anything. 

Bismuth turned, giving Peridot a hard look over the back of the front seat.

“If you’re working for someone, now is the time to tell us. And, ahh,” she chuckled, “I wouldn’t lie, if I were you.”

“I don’t work directly for anyone.” Peridot lied. “It’s more like… a contracting position. If they need me, we negotiate. No one asked me to go to Foreman, and no one should be trying to check up on me.”

The look Bismuth gave Peridot… well, it wasn’t outright aggressive or distrustful, but it certainly wasn’t impressed. Peridot made a note to keep her place of work hidden as long as possible. She didn’t particularly want to be on the shit list of any of these people, especially not when her suit was trashed. 

She was going to catch some absolute hell for that. It had been a million dollar project. She didn’t need anymore debt, but since when had life been on her side, anyways?

Whatever. Bismuth didn’t seem like she intended to snap Peridot in half ( _ yet _ ), and that was what mattered for now. 

“We should leave.” Garnet said suddenly. “We can get Peridot’s clothes later.” Peridot bit her tongue. She was miserable without her glasses, and she really should have her phone with her-- but they probably wouldn’t let her keep her phone with her anyways, incase of a tracking advice. Damn it. 

Pearl flicked the headlight back on and shifted into drive. 

No one spoke for the rest of the ride.

* * *

 

Pearl parked the truck in a private lot, right next o a wide expanse of apparently also private beach. Peridot frowned, fidgeting with the hem of the towel. She could infer that the ‘base’ was hidden on this beach, but… well. The paranoia was hard to shake. Especially since she couldn’t really  _ see,  _ what with her glasses missing. 

Everyone exited the car in a flurry of movement, and Peridot shuffled after them, the towel still pulled around her shoulders. She squinted and followed the blurry silhouettes, only barely visible in the dim light of dawn, stumbling over the soft sand. What she wouldn’t give to be back in the relative safety of her suit.

Pearl led the five of them to a large cliff face-- Peridot glanced up, just barely able to make out the red and white of the abandoned lighthouse above. Huh. She actually had a pretty good idea of where this was, compared to her own apartment and Diamond Labs. She filed that tidbit away for future contemplating, and one of the silhouettes (probably Garnet?) glanced back at her. Peridot’s jaw ticked.

Whatever. Pearl did… something Peridot couldn’t make out to the rocks, and the rocks pulled apart like curtains with a quiet  _ shoomf. _ The five of them stepped inside, the rocks sliding shut behind them as the lights came on. Peridot squinted her eyes shut as they tried to adjust, shaking her head to try and re-orient herself. 

“Y’ ok?” Amethyst asked quietly, and Peridot started.

“Headache.” She grumbled shortly, rubbing at her eyes but nodding. She hesitated for a moment. “The concern is… appreciated.” She said cautiously, glancing over at the short smear of purple and white that was probably Amethyst. Amethyst said nothing, and Peridot let the moment pass, frowning down at her fingers.

A large hand came down on her shoulder, and Peridot squeaked in surprise.

“This way,” Bismuth said ushering Peridot down a long, downward-sloping hallway and through a single door, behind Pearl and Garnet. She could hear Amethyst trailing behind them.  

They entered into a large, windowless room-- no, a garden? The air smelled floral, and her surroundings were green, but surely they were underground by now? She’d have to investigate later, if she ever got a second chance to be here. 

It was brighter in this room, anyways. Bright enough to make out what was probably Rose, who was making her way over from what appeared to be some sort of large fountain. She hesitated as she approached. 

“Was there trouble?” She asked. 

“Someone was in Peridot’s apartment when she arrived. We decided not to take a risk in finding out who.” Garnet replied. 

“I can _ talk _ ,” Peridot muttered under her breath. Next thing you knew, these…  _ heros  _ would have her on a toddler leash. 

“We have more important things to focus on right now, anyways.” Pearl said sharply. “We should be coming up with a plan to deal with this AI, and to do that,” she glanced over at Peridot, “We need more information. So if you don’t mind _ talking… _ ” 

Peridot bristled and flushed. “It’s a long story. Well, I mean, it’s not long, but it is complicated. And there may be some…” She grimaced, “gaps in my memory, due to the psychic wound that the AI somehow inflicted on me.” 

Rose clapped her hands, and Peridot flinched. 

“Why don’t we use the Room, then? We’ll get the best possible recollection, and you can explain and complications to us.” Rose beamed. 

There was a great deal of shifting and nervous looks amongst the rest of the Crystal Gems. Oh, wait, they all had-- finally, that name made  _ sense!  _ Peridot had been trying to figure out what gems had to do with any of them since she first encountered the team. 

“Should we really show her the Room?” Amethyst asked, and Peridot was snapped out of her pondernace by the unexpected twinge of betrayal. Right, they didn’t have any reason to trust her. Right.

“I think I agree with Amethyst,” Pearl nervously twittered, “that’s… well, no one knows about that. It would be giving up-- well. I shouldn’t even have to say it. And to someone who can manipulate technology with her mind--!”

Peridot pulled the towel a little tighter around her shoulders. For some reason, she didn’t like this, this being seen as a threat. She wasn’t used to it. No one had really even taken her seriously in her suit, and at least if someone decided that she had to be taken down, the suit was relatively safe! Vulnerable, that was the word. If anyone here decided that she needed to be eliminated…

“Pearl, dear, you worry too much. The Room isn’t connected to our main systems. Even if she tried something, she couldn’t touch the rest of the base.”

“I’m not worried about the base, I’m worried about the integrity of the Room! We have no idea what will happen when she interfaces with her powers!” Pearl squawked angrily.

“Only one way to find out,” Bismuth cut in. “She shouldn’t be able to lie to the Room, it accesses a completely different part of the mind. Anyways, if the AI could give her a shock, the Room should be able to do the same thing if she tries to overpower it. Actually,” She chuckled, “now that I think about it, I’d say the rooms our best bet for getting the truth out of her!” She gave Peridot another hearty pat on the shoulder, and Peridot swallowed around the quickly-forming lump in her throat. 

Pearl made an exasperated sort of noise. “Garnet…” She said, looking for backup.

Garnet was silent for a moment. Finally, she said, “It’ll work.”

Pearl groaned loudly. 

“Alright, then. Let’s get this over with.”

Rose made a pleased noise and turned, leading the group through the thick foliage (what the  _ fuck _ ) to a small cobblestone path. Bismuth kept a guiding hand on Peridot’s shoulder, and once again, Amethyst took up the rear. 

Whatever Peridot was expecting, a bubblegum pink door was not it. She was certainly not expecting the cotton candy cloudscape within, the wispy clouds obscuring the true size of the room. 

“What the _ fuck, _ ” she asked quietly “is this?”

“Language,” Pearl replied, and Bismuth laughed quietly. 

“Fuck you,” Peridot said, still gobsmacked by the pastel hell she was apparently not supposed to interface with. She cautiously stepped forward reached out anyways, ignoring the painful little sore-muscle twinge, to find… Oh, what the  _ fuck.  _ “What is this, some sort of… neural interface?”

“Are you using your powers on it, dude? Stop that.” Amethyst scolded, and there it was again, that little twinge of betrayal. Fuck. She squashed it down, or at least, she told herself she did. 

“There’s not much I can do with my powers that I couldn’t do without them, if I understand this… room correctly.” Peridot scoffed, “Your worries are completely unfounded.” She withdrew her contact anyways. 

“You seem to have the gist of it, so why don’t you go ahead and start showing us what happened?” Pearl said. God, Peridot could hear the sneer in her voice. 

She licked her lips nervously. She had a vague idea of how this worked from her interfacing-- you said what you wanted, and the room read your mind and memories to create… a simulation, maybe? She idly passed her hand through a nearby cloud, wondering how solid this room would make her memories. 

She could feel five sets of eyes on her back, so she took a deep breath and began. 

* * *

 

“I had heard some rumors about a new AI made at Foreman Tech, one that couldn’t  _ just _ pass the Turing Test, but that could actually think. I decided to go check it out and see if Foreman had managed to build anything interesting.” Peridot's voice was very deliberately even, Amethyst noticed. Based on what she had seen at Forman, she still didn’t think this was a good idea, but hey, when did the Gems ever listen to her? Whatever.

As Peridot spoke, the room changed around her-- it was like watching a movie. Mechanisma was slipping silently to the shipping dock, commanding the door to open for her. She really wouldn’t be able to hide anything from this place, huh?

“Security was easy to slip by, and the AI module was easy to find. It wasn’t hooked up to any monitors or sensors, and I didn’t want to leave any proof that someone had broken in. So, I interfaced with it.”

They all watched as Mechanisma hefted up the AI-- a soccer ball sized lump of wiring and metal. The lab looked pristine, the walls lined with neatly labeled cabinets and the counters covered with various machines and even a little rack of petri dishes. Mechanisma was holding the module at arm’s length, the robotic suits heal inclined as she began to interface. 

“That was a mistake.”

Amethyst could hear Pearl inhale sharply next to her as the arc passes between the module and the suit like lighting. Hell, Amethyst gasped too. The mask just exploded-- outward, luckily, glass shards flying across the room as Mechanisma dropped the module and stumbled back against the closed door, clutching at the remains of the suit’s head. Was that why the head had been so thoroughly jammed into the shoulders?

“I couldn’t break the connection. It was just screaming-- I don’t even know if it was angry or scared, or what.” Peridot’s voice was still eerily calm, but Amethyst could see her curl a little closer into herself.

Mechanisma crumpled to the floor, still clutching at the edges of the mask. 

“I could barely think. I don’t know what they did to make that AI, but it was much more than a computer program. A computer can’t do that, even if it can think. The pain was too much, and I passed out.

“I don’t know when I woke up, but I woke up hearing the alarms going off. I thought I’d been caught, so I went to run for it.” And indeed, while none of them could hear what was happening (had Peridot managed to silence the room, or did she not  _ want _ to hear it?), it was plain to see the red pulse of the alarm lights.

Mechanisma stumbled back to her feet, sparing a glance back at the AI module before throwing the door open.

“I left the module behind. I don’t know what they did, and I don’t think I ever want to. I went to go out the way I came, but…”

The six watching heard nothing, but Mechanisma whipped around just in time for them to see a hulking figure, bathed in the red light of the alarms. It was large enough to barely fit in the hallways-- that answered what wrecked the walls and ceiling. As if on cue, the robot took a swing, obliterating a chunk of drywall and brick as it’s fist slammed into the wall.

But the robot looked… odd, in the recollection, almost blurred. The room must not have been able to reconstruct it from Peridot’s memories.

“I don’t know what it was, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t human. I think it may have been another invention of Foreman’s. Either way, it charged me.”

Mechanisma raised her arm blasters, shooting bolts of sizzling green plasma at the intruder, and the other figure didn’t even  _ flinch _ . Mechanisma hesitated, then turned and ran. The robot gave chase, easily outpacing Mechanisma. She turned, trying to run up the wall and double back, but one large hand snapped out and caught her at the ankle, slamming her back into the ground. Amethyst winced in sympathy. Mechanisma writhed on the tile, and the robot twisted its wrist and pulled its arm back-- and the foot of the suit was pulled off of the leg entirely, leaving Mechanisma to scramble away on all fours. 

Peridot’s voice began to crack.

“I ducked into another lab, trying to recover and escape. It, well…”

Mechanisma kicked the door shut behind her, but it was too late. The door was torn off of its hinges, and the robot seized Mechanisma by the waist, tossing her easily into the far wall. She crumpled to her knees, and the robot advanced. 

“It went poorly.” 

Mechanisma went flying back into the opposite wall, and a fist came down on her torso, shattering the green fiberglass casing of the suit.

“Do we have to watch the rest of this?” Peridot asked, now visibly tense, the towel wrapped tightly around her.

“No, that’ll be enough to go off of.” Rose replied. “Room, that will be all.” She said, her voice raised, and the simulation stopped; Mechanisma, the lab, and the robot dissolving back into soft pink clouds. 

Peridot looked like a spring ready to snap, she was so tense. She turned back to face them, her face carefully blank.

“Was that information sufficient for you to formulate a plan?” She asked stiffly. 

Garnet shifted, but Amethyst couldn’t begin to say why. Whatever.

“Not really, no,” said Pearl, “but I didn’t really think we’d be able to get that much information from one point of view.”

“Then why did you _assholes_ want me to show you?” Peridot said through gritted teeth. Amethyst got the feeling that Peridot may have been holding a few choice words back in that sentence.

“It was still useful information,” Pearl evenly replied, “now we know where to start looking. That’s a lot more then we had before.” She glanced over to Rose. “Shall we take this back to the fountain? I don’t want to risk accidentally activating the Room.” And yeah, that was a super good point. It was easy to get lost in the room if you didn’t realize you’d activated it. To be fair, Amethyst had only gotten lost twice, and  _ man _ had she gotten a scolding for the second time.

Garnet nodded. 

“Now would be the best time to plan. After that, we can all actually get some rest.”

Oh shit, yeah it was like five am and Amethyst hadn’t slept at all. At least the bakery was closed on Sundays, she could get a good power nap in.

They filed out of the room. Amethyst glanced back to see Peridot looking over her shoulder, staring into the pink clouds of the Room. 

“It’s not real, dude.” Amethyst called. 

“I know _ that _ ,” Peridot snapped, and Amethyst rolled her eyes, slowing down to walk alongside Peridot. 

“No need to get pissy at me, dude. I told them the Room was a bad idea.” And it obviously had been-- Peridot could try to hide how shaken she was, but frankly speaking none of them were fooled. 

“Right, because you were worried about me interfacing with it.”

“Is that what you call it? Interfacing?” Amethyst asked, half out of curiosity and half because Peridot seemed pretty genuinely pissed. Poking the wound was probably not a good idea. 

“It doesn’t matter what I call it, but ‘interfacing’ is what I consider to be the correct term, yes.” Peridot replied, still sounding a bit peevish. But hey, it still seemed like an improvement, so Amethyst continued on that track. 

“How does that work, anyways? Like, can you do it long range, or what? Can you--”

“I don’t owe you _any_ of that information.” Peridot growled, and Amethyst put her hands up in mock surrender.

“Man, what is your  _ problem _ ? I’m just trying to make conversation.” Amethyst snapped back. “Look, If we’re going to work--”

“ _ There is no w-- _ ” Peridot cut her off, but not before Garnet loudly cleared her throat. Peridot’s mouth shut with an audible click, and she crossed her arms, looking down at the ground. 

The rest of the walk to the fountain was in silence. Peridot notably hesitated when the rest of the group seated themselves on the edge of the fountain, before finally sitting gingerly on the rough gray stone.

“So obviously, the first thing to do is gather information. Splitting up into teams is the best way to cover ground, but I don’t want anyone going off on their own until we know more about the robot Peridot saw.” Rose declared. 

Amethyst nodded quietly. She’d really rather jump to some real action, but they sort of needed to find the action first. Bummer, but necessary.

“Seems like the people to be investigating now are Foreman. We’ll definitely need someone at the scene. Garnet has the best cover” Bismuth started in. 

“I’ll need Pearl with me. I won’t know enough about any technology I find on my own. ‘S not my area.” Garnet said. Pearl nodded sharply.

“Are we all going to be at Foreman, then? We’ll have to send someone to check the surrounding area, we can’t all just show up.” Bismuth asked.

Amethyst shook her head. 

“If that robot was from Foreman, it was from a different location. It tore up the front door, so it must have come from somewhere else.” She said. 

Pearl raised her eyebrows. 

“Are you sure?” she asked, “Because if that’s the case then we still don’t have enough information to start looking. We need to figure out where that robot come from.”

“Has anyone checked the news? I bet it was on the news.” Bismuth said, and Garnet pulled out her phone, tapping at the screen.

“Ahh. Hmm.” Was all she said, and that was never good.  

“What’s the news, G?” Amethyst asked, and Garnet shook her head. 

“Break in at the Diamond Labs. Big project got stolen, apparently.”

Ah, shit. 

“Well, we can’t investigate that now can we? Great way to get captured.” Bismuth groaned, letting her head rest on her fist. 

Peridot cleared her throat. 

“Which, ah… Do they mention which division the project was associated with?”

Everyone turned to look at Peridot, who was frowning deeply. Did she ever smile?

“That would be the resource management division.” Garnet said slowly. Peridot winced. 

“Of course it is.” Peridot bit her lip, but really, Amethyst knew what she was about to say. 

“We’re not gonna toss you to the Diamonds,” Bismuth cut in.

Peridot sucked in a breath through her teeth. 

“You don’t need to toss me in. I, uhm… I can get any information you need, because I’m pretty sure I built that robot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually cut a section off of this chapter and moved it to the next, because this chapter was getting ridiculously long. Oh well!
> 
> I like most of this chapter, but I think the thing I'm most worried about is keeping it balanced vis-a-vis Peridot being sympathetic/the Gems being sympathetic and understandable. Writing is hard, who'd've thunk? (the other hard part is keeping the POVs clear, and I think I did okay with that, so ???)
> 
> I'm going to be posting this chapter (and all future chapters/tidbits) on my SFW Tumblr, spiral-of-berries.tumblr.com under the tag EONfic, so please check that out if you want to see more of my writing and notes!

**Author's Note:**

> Little three-chapter thingy. I accidentally more plot than I needed. Amethyst calls Peridot they because she has no clue who Mechanisma really is, and is trying to be conscientious. You go, Amethyst.
> 
> I have this and some more of my writing up at my tumblr, thewanderingcourier dot tumblr dot com with the tag eonfic, so feel free to follow me and check some of my other stuff out!


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